Key Cities Special Interest Group Annual Report to LGA Leadership Board

| SIG Name: | Key Cities Group | |----------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | Lead Member: | Cllr Paul Watson, Sunderland City Council | | Lead Officer: | Jill Laverick, Sunderland City Council |

**Aim**

The purpose of Key Cities is to provide focus, collaboration of learning and a unified voice to ensure that those cities within the group are more visible and consistently represented in economic policy-making at a national level in order to help create vibrant cities which can compete across Europe and the globe for business and growth.

The key roles of Key Cities will be:

- To tackle common issues and provide a single voice;
- To lobby Government on issues of importance to the cities;
- To influence key national and international strategies;
- To raise the profile of the cities with businesses and investors;
- To commit to working across local administrative boundaries to develop and share knowledge, ideas, and information;
- To recognise the diversity of the group and ensure the strengths of individual cities are maximised

**Key Activities / Outcomes of work undertaken**

**Key Cities APPG**

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Key Cities launched on Wednesday 8 February 2017.

The Group is pursuing clear policy commitments to promote economic opportunity—including those that could potentially be offered through the emerging industrial strategy.

[http://www.keycities.co.uk/powerful-new-voice-key-cities-launched-parliament](http://www.keycities.co.uk/powerful-new-voice-key-cities-launched-parliament)

**Industrial Strategy**

Before January’s Green Paper release, the Group was already considering how it could help shape the Government’s emerging Industrial Strategy in line with the best interests of Key Cities.

The report was completed and submitted to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April 2017.

[http://www.keycities.co.uk/sites/default/files/publications/oce21075%20Key%20Cities%20United%20and%20Industrious%20Report%20A4%20%283%29_0.pdf](http://www.keycities.co.uk/sites/default/files/publications/oce21075%20Key%20Cities%20United%20and%20Industrious%20Report%20A4%20%283%29_0.pdf) Inclusive Growth Commission

Key Cities agreed to sponsor the RSA’s Inclusive Growth Commission in 2016 and the final report was launched on 6 March this year. We have responded to its call for evidence and worked closely on communications activity at key stages of the commission’s progress.

Inclusive Growth Commission: Making Our Economy Work for Everyone

Core Cities

Core Cities and Key Cities joint working on topics of mutual interest during 2017. The overall aim for this work is to get policy for cities and devolution back onto the decision-making agenda and media radar during a busy political year, which is nevertheless critical to urban policy.